LA mayor signs proclamation making Juneteenth a paid holiday for city employees – Daily News
LOS ANGELES — Mayor Eric Garcetti signed a proclamation Monday making Juneteenth, which commemorates the tip of slavery on June 19, a paid holiday for Los Angeles city employees.
“We want every child to know what Juneteenth commemorates. The day — June 19, 1865 — in which a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the last African Americans still held in bondage in this nation that they were free and the Civil War was over,” Garcetti stated Monday.
Juneteenth is the commemoration of the tip of slavery particularly in Galveston, greater than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Enforcement of President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation usually relied on the advance of Union troops.
The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in August 2020 to provoke the method of making Juneteenth an official city holiday to rejoice the tip of slavery within the United States. The movement was launched by Councilmen Curren Price, Herb Wesson and Marqueece Harris-Dawson following June 2020 demonstrations demanding racial fairness and justice within the nation and to protest the killings of Black Americans by the hands of police.
“Juneteenth addresses the end of nation’s darkest days by acknowledging the historical significance, and it offers a glimpse, a small glimpse, of vindication,” Price stated. “This will now be a day of remembrance for our city. At this time in our culture, we need to do everything in our power to … educate one another about the things left out of the history books, and we have to demonstrate inclusion and celebrate our progress, keeping in mind that we still have a long way to go.”
Juneteenth was acknowledged as an official federal holiday in 2021.